LA Weekly: It’s None of Your Business How Much Water Your Neighbor Uses

The LA Weekly examines the idea of drought shaming to get people to cut back on excessive water use, and whether or not that is a meaningful strategy for increasing water conservation. The story compares drought shaming to a more efficient tactic for curbing people’s use of a scarce resource—raising rates and creating better price signals.

The article goes on to note that even in the midst of a historic drought, Los Angeles water rates are actually lower than they are in many East Coast cities, and describes LADWP’s five-year water rate change proposal, which includes creating four water price tiers instead of two, with the biggest water users paying a premium rate.